


Work Experience

by Nonsuch



Category: Jupiter Ascending (2015)
Genre: Complete, Immortality, Immortals in Space, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Other, Screwy Mother-Daughter Relationship, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-13
Updated: 2015-07-13
Packaged: 2018-04-09 05:08:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4335068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nonsuch/pseuds/Nonsuch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kalique learns what it is to be an Abrasax.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Work Experience

As we descended, floating softly through a shimmering beam of light, I was struck by the vast crowd assembled to greet us. I had never seen a greater number of people. No ground was visiblefor the thickness of the throng, and the thousands of eyes set upon us glinted in the light emanating from the newly risen sun.

“How long ago did you last visit this planet, Mother?” I asked, anxious to relieve the silence.

She replied without turning her head from the massed crowds, her lips hardly moving. She liked to make it a challenge to hear her. “Perhaps a thousand years ago.” Before my birth then, I realised.  But still, a thousand years was hardly any time at all to my mother. “It is a lesser planet. Quite backward, really.”

I returned my gaze to the crowd, searching for an end to it. But there was no end, no spot barren of life. The atmosphere throbbed with anticipation. I collected myself before turning my head to reply to my mother: “I am impressed that they even remember us. How long do the humans on this planet live?”

“Fifty years, I believe. They know us from stories and legends – we are their gods, the very roots of their consciousness. Now, keep your attention on them.  You are here to learn, and ought to become familiar with my subjects.”

I did as I was told, unsurprised to find the eyes of the crowd still fixed upon us. Though they were too distant for me to make out such details with any certainty, I fancied that some of them were weeping. I theorised that they were overcome, though I struggled to understand why that might be. My outlook only ended with our landing, our feet coming to rest upon sun-warmed marble. Mother had explained that the structure was a temple, erected millennia before at the expense of thousands of indentured lives (“though somewhat crude, it is of the correct scale. It is as grand as they could make it”).

Mother stepped forward, her golden ceremonial dress shimmering as she approached the edge of the platform. She formed a grand silhouette, the spindly tendrils of her bejewelled headdress reaching high above her head and making her appear far larger than she was. I followed hesitantly, acutely aware of how small and plain I was in my simple white gown. The familiar light and cool touch of the transport beam had vanished, leaving the sky a vast, unbroken stretch of pale gold and the air oppressively thick with building heat.

While the platform soared high above the throng, keeping us separate, I was unbearably conscious of the great swathes of humanity enclosing us from all sides. Aside from a few sojourns on Mother’s pleasure planets, I had only known the vast, echoing halls of ships and the reassuring emptiness of space. There was no purity to this place, the air tainted by the stink of sweat and spices. I felt mildly sickened by it, and my steps towards the edge of the platform were somewhat unsteady. I was unused to the absolute pull of gravity, what it was to walk so close to the earth.

My apprehension only deepened once I reached the edge, and I flinched back instinctively from the faces that met me, now so much closer than before. They were burnt and weathered from prolonged exposure to the sun, and their faces held a crude hunger the like of which I had never seen. Their teeth were exposed as they chanted in a foreign tongue, their mouths black with rot, and I could well imagine the foulness of their breath.

Knowing better than to seek comfort or reassurance from her, I instead turned to Mother to seek understanding. “What do they want of us?” I whispered the question to be sure that none of the people below would hear the tremor in my voice, half afraid the wind might catch my words and scatter them about. I only knew I had been heard on account of the small smile that tugged at the corner of Mother’s mouth.

“They want to be blessed. It is as I told you – we are gods to them.”

“But how do we bless them?” I looked out over the crowds once more, perturbed by the sight of thousands of arms stretched up towards us. I could not begin to imagine how they perceived us, how our forms could possibly inspire such holy awe in thousands.

“You fret too much, child. Our presence is enough. Our existence proves the very foundations of their beliefs. Stories of this will last far longer than any of their lives. Now – watch what I can have them do.”

She took a single step closer to the edge, her train rippling behind her and shining like molten gold. It put the weak yellow light emanating from the sun behind us to shame. I watched from my position beside her, carefully studying the calculated, expressive movements of her body. For a few sacred moments, I shared in the awe of the crowd. I felt moved by her love – the sweeping, undiscriminating love of a creator – as she moved her soft palms to her breast, subsequently spreading her arms wide as if to offer some precious sliver of herself to every person assembled below us. My appreciation of her love only altered as she tilted her head back and parted her lips, remaining utterly silent as if to speak would be to break the spell. She raised her arms slowly skyward, her expression ecstatic and her whole body trembling with emotion. 

All thoughts of love were shattered when she struck her palms together, the strike ringing out like a thunder clap. She kept her hands together above her and her head arced back, and she began to laugh as the screams started to rise up from beneath us. The wind caught the sharp, coppery scent of blood, lifting it to us like an offering. It had filled my mouth, my nostrils, by the time I could finally bring myself to look from my mother to the crowd.

Fresh corpses were slumped on the red ground closest to the temple, the bodies of the dead overlapping to form a vast tapestry of flesh. I counted hundreds of corpses as my gaze swept the great weave of the dead, but even my divine eyes could not see them all. The murderers stood behind the bodies, wet blades glinting in their hands as they reached upwards for our blessing.

The new weight in the air – the weight of life and death, the weight of sacrifice – overpowered me, and I retreated from the edge for fear of falling. My mother’s position remained unchanged, her ecstasy even greater for the blood and the dying moans of those left to die slowly. Her spirit seemed lighter than I had ever seen it.

My attention remained rapt upon her even as sickness tainted my tongue. To witness her was to witness power incarnate. I felt her blood pulse through my body for the first time, some echo of her alive within me. I no longer felt small or afraid, and the creatures below me – though most of them still stood erect, as drunk on blood and power as my mother – had ceased to inspire fear. They could be made to kill with a hand clap.

While I cannot say that I shared fully in my mother’s delight, I can say I had learned what it was to be a god.

And I rather liked it.

**Author's Note:**

> This is based on the following question: what does ruling a populace that cannot possibly comprehend your existence entail? The Wachowskis have referred to the Abrasax sibs as antecedents for gods and goddesses, and I basically ran with that concept - here, Seraphi is effectively schooling Kalique in how to play a goddess. She's as much a goddess of death as a goddess of life, and she frickin' loves it (this is a decidedly pre-remorse Seraphi).
> 
> This was edited by canterville, whose feedback proved to be immensely helpful and really helped me to clarify my meaning (though I hopefully didn't clarify it too much - I don't like to make things excessively clear, though I don't want people to be lost either). Just to answer a question you (sort of) raised, Seraphi is happy to have hundreds of lives sacrificed to honour her for several reasons, including 1.) such a sacrifice is negligible in the greater scheme of things, 2.) it appeals to her deep-seated vanity and narcissism, 3.) she feels she deserves it. Her life is worth more than the lives of everyone on the planet, and she relishes being reminded of the fact - it gives her a divine high. She loves the sacrifice for much the same reason Kalique bathes in the remains of thousands of dead when she could probably achieve the same results by ingesting the remains of a hundred - 'cos she's worth it, baby!
> 
> Anyway, I hope you read and enjoy this - do leave comments with your thoughts/responses to this. I have various other ideas for stories from Kalique's perspective, and might turn them into something of a series.


End file.
